Archives For stefanie sun
My yearly tradition~
(even though I haven’t been writing at all~~~ lol)
I hope I get to be more productive next year.
Happy listening~
I’ve just published a list of 100 songs in Chinese (mostly Mandarin, but also Cantonese… and maybe Hokkien… can’t be sure of that) that’s a great cheat sheet for anyone wanting to show off their knowledge of the scene. There’s definitely a wide variety of artists, so you’re sure to find something you enjoy.
Visit YAM Magazine for the list with a link included to the YouTube playlist.
I put together my lists of Top15 Movies, Bottom15 Movies, as well as my Top15 Albums from 2011.
Oct 11
BiBi’s Sherlock Holmes
I am just in love with this new track 福尔摩斯, which apparently is Sherlock Holmes’ name in Chinese xD. Can’t wait for the new album, and actually get hands on lyrics on WHY it’s called like that… like I did with Canned Fish~~~ LOL
The arrangements on the song is quite simple compared to other more elaborate BiBi songs, but that styles suits her great because her voice sounds quite amazing. At first I was struck at how soft the song started, which then builds up. After a few listens — yes, I’ve listened to it multiple times already — it struck me like a really soft version of Eason Chan’s Exaggerate [1] which then turns into this classical sounding Stefanie Sun-type song. I love it. At the same time, you can listen to BiBi’s voice and it’s all the much better xD
Am I starting a series? Nah… I don’t think I can come up with a Jpop list xD
Unlike the Kpop list which it focused 99% of the time on dance pop friendly tracks that went beyond American commercial pop, this “Cpop” list is… not really pop.
Popular music in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mainland China (but mostly Taiwan) tends to be pop/rockish flare. Sure there are dance pop friendly, but even they have moved or are moving more towards pop/rock. They also love indie flavor, and accept not particularly attractiveness in their idols… even though there are some very good looking people who are immensely popular.
To be completely honest, compared to Korea’s pop music charts, Chinese music charts have a broad variety. But then again, compared to Japan’s pop music charts (which is comprised of AKB48 and Arashi xD), even Kpop charts (mostly 2NE1 and Big Bang now that DBSK is gone) seem to have some variety. xD
So this list of great Chinese music includes varying genres from R&B, pop/rock… more rockish, ballads (regular and of the indie type), etc. once again listed by year of release.
Again, it’s a bit weak on the earlier years… but you are welcome to make suggestions (for any year). A few guidelines would be that they cannot be too indie (I couldn’t fit Cheer Cheen or Mavis Fan in the list because they don’t feel completely pop, if you know what I mean), must include MVs (so songs released as singles), not older than late 90s.
Also… song must work as MV too. So no awesome songs but tacky videos. Sorry.
[iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL0C06C35FA9FC1C64&hl=en_US”]
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What do you like about the Cpop industry?
Who are your fave artists?
This one turned out to be really awesome, if I may say so myself.
Of course, I have been trying to put this together since last year, LOL – so it’d better be good, right? Though, I know there are some repeat tracks if you’ve followed the blog, I think it’s fair to say that the combination of songs has a nice flow. It’s turned out to be a really moody list~
You can check my previous Chinese Music Playlists [1][2]
[iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL4603C993E0B0D0BB&hl=en_US”]
- Mavis Fan (范曉萱) – I Want Us to Be Together (我要我們在一起)
- Waa Wei (魏如萱) – Shangri-La (香格里拉)
- Jing Chang (張芸京) – Broken (壞了)
- Leehom Wang (王力宏) – Daily Necessities (柴米油鹽醬醋茶)
- R-Chord featuring LaLa Hsu (謝和弦 feat. 徐佳瑩) – Under the Willow Tree (柳樹下)
- Stefanie Sun (孫燕姿) – Silent All These Years
- A-Mei Chang (張惠妹) – What Time Is It Already? (你在看我嗎)
- Jing Chang (張芸京) – The Opposite Me (相反的我)
- Chris Lee (李宇春) – Lost Heart Crazy (失心瘋)
- Dream Girls – Weak (軟弱)
- A-Mei Chang (張惠妹) [as AMIT] – After the Sentimental Love of Animals (相愛後動物感傷)*
- Stefanie Sun (孫燕姿) – The Kingdom of Fools (愚人的國度)
*Note: There’s some blurred nudity and depictions of sex in that video.
You can check the playlist on YouTube.
There’s this funny thing about fandom, they just don’t care about anything else that doesn’t directly affect fandom. So unless X-member of boy/girl group is directing a movie, you won’t hear who’s directing a film.
But then again, that’s what generally happens anywhere.
I just wished, at least, that labels would care to put this information down in their description fields… to make it easier. I know Chinese/Taiwanese music videos have the information — most of the times — of who wrote the music, the lyrics and who directed all in the video… but it makes it really REALLY SUPER REALLY hard for us, who don’t read character. For a two paragraph post, I have to spend 1hr (maybe) getting the character on paper, then using Japanese handwriting input or the Kanji dictionary to get the characters into a browser, and then search for it. And that’s just the bit where I get the names xD
Anyway, I feel illuminated because I have discovered 5 important names that I will highlight in this post. But since no one is more important than the other, it will be from most recent mentioned in the blog.
First, Bounce (比尔贾) of Bounce Visual Creative… the director of one of my latest fave music videos: Stefanie Sun’s The Kingdom of Fools, a song which bring me to… Francis Lee (李焯雄), a Taiwanese lyricist who wrote Sun’s lyrics for that song, as well as being in charge of many of the songs in BiBi’s NOW/WOW album… as well as the Canned Fish song.
Then theres’ COSMOS, aka. Yingzhi Chen (陳映之) who directed Elva Hsiao’s Let Love Fly, other artists… and has recently directed this new girl group called Dream Girls and their MV for Tears Should Also Be Beautiful… a song which was written by famous Taiwanese songwriter Yao Ruo Long (姚若龍), who is the one who wrote one of my 2010 faves- Broken by Jing Chang.
And finally, another video for Dream Girls (this time I’m Your Dreamgirl) directed me to Yi Ren Chen (陳奕仁), the MV director of such gems such as Incomparable Beauty and Little Love Song – all by Sodagreen ;D
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I feel like I learned something important these past few days of posting CMusic MVs. LOL Too bad I still haven’t finished Chinese homework and it’s nearly 4am.
